©Jessica P. Morrell

I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries. ~ Frank Capra

A few months ago I was part of a discussion about a writer’s novel-in-progress. The writer had been struggling for years to craft a compelling a novel—a sort of heartbreaking record, but one that is not uncommon. The group was at a loss at how to help this person create viable scenes and take his writing up a notch. And someone remarked that it seemed that the writer didn’t seem to know the difference between drama and melodrama. That remark was an epiphany for me and since then I’ve been wondering how this concept can be explained.

Because sometimes it seems that melodrama is sort of like pornography. As Justice Potter Stewart once famously remarked, he couldn’t define pornography, but he knew it when he saw it. But one person’s porn is another person’s erotica. And how can you separate drama from melodrama or rate a drama for its emotional content?  Is Marley and Me melodrama? The Perfect Storm? Gaslight? 3:10 to Yuma? It’s A Wonderful Life? All of the above? Where are we going to draw the line?

Melodrama is known for heart tugging, hanky-wetting, tear-jerker sensationalized plots that push (usually traumatized) characters over the edge. While the term is associated with over the top and silliness, the form originated from a theatrical genre popularized in Europe, particularly France in the 1800s. Influenced by opera, it meant that literally music was added to the drama to heighten the effects of the unfolding actions and the most vivid moments were linked to the greatest suffering. The genre influenced the novel and in both plays and novels, melodrama has characters, plot, although plot can be minimal, simplistic dialogue, and a central crisis; sometimes an interpersonal conflict, sometimes physical jeopardy. However, these elements are taken to the limit and often exaggerated emotions are, well, emoted until they can become silly or farcical typically leading to a conventional happy ending.

Now melodramas can exist in any format and don’t require a musical score since they have run the gamut from 18^th  and 19^th century fiction, silent era films, dime store novels, radio and television soap operas, films, particularly those in the first decades of Hollywood. After this legacy, less exaggerated dramas started being published, and were featured in films and television series.  But the form has never died and often adventure stories and films are melodramatic as in the Indiana Jones film series. Jurassic Park is melodrama, I mean kids being chased by man-eating beasts― definitely has melodramatic elements, but most people think these are engrossing stories.

The situations central to melodrama are too many to mention, but many are associated with emotional or physical hardship and tests. In traditional theatrical melodrama the protagonist was buffeted by forces outside his control and is thus a victim of fate or the antagonist. Characters are sharply contrasted, although there is often an ally in the plot.  Here is a partial list of situations: doomed love affairs, death-defying escapes, terminal illness, sick or dying children, hidden family insanity, mothers or heroes who sacrifice all for children or cast members, fallen women, parents losing their children, children losing dogs, orphans, suicide, amnesia victims, rags to riches, riches to rags, illegitimate heirs, disasters, torture. Goodness is rewarded or good always triumphs over evil. Bad guys are always, always caught.  Strong jawed heroes don’t waver and are capable of extraordinary bravery and feats of derring-do. It’s easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

So for my money melodrama equals exaggeration, simplistic devices, stereotypes, and predictability. The writer doesn’t trust his audience or reader and nothing is left to inference or suggestion—everything is spelled out in broad, sweeping strokes. As soon as the villain strides into the scene we know immediately that his soul is as bleak as a coal mine. And the villain must be destroyed and must remain villainous and unsympathetic throughout, just as the hero must remain stalwart and just.

I spot melodrama in manuscripts when writers simply don’t know when to end a scene. In opera typically the players sing their longest, saddest songs when they are heartbroken or dying (some prolonged numbers happen during the falling-in-love scenes too). Similarly writers try too hard to milk sad or emotional scenes. The characters lack subtlety or nuance and proclaim their love, anguish, and longing in grand and lingering gestures. But often the more painful or emotional the moment, the more you need to use the ol’ ‘less is more’ rule. Back away from endless tears, protestations, conflagrations, and deathbed conversions. Real drama is more like life: bittersweet, complicated, sweaty. Which is maybe why I like anti-heroes so much. Give me a screw up because I can relate to him or her and the storyline will keep me engrossed because I’m never sure if his better angels will hold sway.

In melodramas the moral message rings shrilly and punishment for defying society can be harsh. Literary critic Northrop Frye in Anatomy of Criticism described a central theme in melodrama as “the triumph of moral virtue over villainy, and the consequent idealizing of the moral views assumed to be held by the audience.”  In fact, often in melodramas cruel justice is meted out especially to women who stray from morals of the times, men who aren’t traditional breadwinners, and people who buck the system.

But here is where things get tricky, because melodrama doesn’t have to suck. Good guys can win and justice can prevail, but the story line and character development must hit just the right note. You know it sucks when readers laugh at a scene that you meant to be serious. Now fiction and drama is a world of hurt—in fact the basic tenet of storytelling is that someone must suffer. Doom and threat always hang over the character and he or she barely squeaks through the story events. But melodrama takes suffering to a fevered pitch, and offers little relief until the emotional catharsis at the climax. Myself, I want a roller-coaster ride of emotions, to feel highs and lows and even ambivalence toward the protagonist.

So how does this all apply to you, dear writer? Start with good intentions to tell a clean story about realistic people experiencing realistic emotions caught in a knotty situation that might not be realistic, but is somehow believable. Try not to be predictable.  Allow your characters to change and grow, even the antagonists and villains. Blur distinctions between good and evil. Use foreshadowing, especially for revelations, and insert logical reversals. Use themes to underline the action with resonance. Know when to back away, when to hush the violins. Make the central conflict complicated and etched with hard choices. Be careful with character gestures and reactions—sprinkle them here and there, not after every comment. Melodrama entertains but it doesn’t make us think; drama helps us know our fellow humans.

“I don’t teach writing. I teach patience. Toughness. Stubbornness. The willingness to fail. I teach the life. The odd thing is most of the things that stop  an inexperienced writer are so far from the truth as to be nearly beside the point.
When you feel global doubt about your talent, that IS your talent.  People who have no talent don’t have any doubt.” –Richard Bausch,
from Off the Page: Writers talk about Beginnings, Endings and Everything in Between.

Welcome to my website.

I’ve been moving this past month and since I work at home, the boxes need to be unpacked, the stapler and files and notebooks located before I can completly settle in and return to my routine. Meanwhile, I’ve got great workshops and sessions planned for Fall 2011.  So please check out my upcoming sessions and stop back for updates, columns, interviews and such. Hope hope you’re all enjoying summer and writing under a blue, blue sky.

Subtlety

Jessica P. Morrell

“Serious writers, including comic writers, are interested in subtlety, in avoiding heavy-handed effects and obvious characterizations. They want to make reader pay close attention, and reader enjoy picking up on clues as subtle as a hesitation or a dropped glance.”    Jerome Stern

“If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is as with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.” Robert Southey

           When it comes to writing, ‘less is more’ is a maxim that resonates with common sense.  I came to appreciate this wisdom during the years that I taught an on-line writing class where writers posted exercises that I’d assigned and asked questions about technique.  When several hundred writers complete the same assignment, you witness firsthand the variety of human creativity, but you also notice that similar bad habits befall writers.

           During that gig, the technique that I suggested most often, especially to beginning writers and often with a circuit preacher’s fervor, was that subtly is often the best approach.  Subtlety was needed on all levels: in diction, style, voice and grammar.  A lack of subtlety leads to bizarre or unbelievable characters, overblown dialogue, scenes that carry on instead of delivering dramatic events, and plots and subplots that take off like a runaway train.

        Excess and gimmickry stem from inexperience, but also because the writer doesn’t trust the reader.  Each reader brings his or her frame of reference, understanding of human behavior and how the world works to your pages.  If you leave out minor details or don’t stop to describe every sunrise or searing kiss, the reader can fill in the gaps with his imagination.  This does not suggest that the reader does your job for you.  Instead, he or she is an active participant in your story.  This is especially important for memoir writers because the overstated can sound like preachiness, ranting, and melodrama.

           Confusion enters the picture when we note the success of authors, particularly literary writers—Dickens, Melville, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, and the like. Their stories are drowning in imagery, metaphor, symbolism.  They feature large casts; plots that wander and tangle and descriptions which go on for pages.  But these writers, while laudable, aren’t who we should emulate, mostly because we need to be firmly grounded in this century.  And today’s readers, assaulted by the sights and sounds of a multi-media world, can be trusted to fill in the blanks and often long for crispness, elegance and simplicity. So, your overall goal is sophistication because a lack of subtlety will result in prose that is graceless and dull.

            Writers make many lonely choices as they practice their craft.  In fact, writing is a tightrope walk of guiding the reader to an experience and yet somehow staying out of the way.  Your decisions about when to be bold and when to hold back stem from understanding when a story or piece needs to slow down, when it should whisper and when it needs to create blood-boiling intensity.  As you write, constantly ask yourself, what effect am I going for here?  

Consider these tips on subtlety when you struggle with what to leave in and what to leave out:

Readers will remember a single, poignant image rather than a complicated description.

 Don’t explain unless necessary for a deep understanding of some major element.  Most writing attempts to distill human experience, not create a recipe for it.

 Practice writing poetry.  The brief descriptions and images in poems, often stunningly understated, teach us to capture moments, people and places in only a few words.

 Scrutinize your final draft for overused words and redundancy.  

 Strive to use unexpected words and phrases, but sparingly.  The best writing doesn’t show off or call attention to itself.  Jargon, as well as unusual, invented, archaic, or onomatopoetic words are also inserted with care.

 Avoid adverbs, especially those that end in –ly.

 When writing in first person, don’t call attention to yourself as in, “I always say” or “yours truly.”

 In fiction create dialogue that is an abbreviated copy of real talk. In nonfiction use only quotes that matter.  For the memoir writer, remember that few people go through life with a tape recorder in hand, thus dialogue will not be the main means of telling your story.  Instead, use choice, revealing snippets. As in fiction, often the best dialogue contains conflict.

 In fiction and memoir, themes don’t need to be spelled out, but rather suggested.

Place emphatic words at the end of sentences and paragraphs.

Let experts, facts and statistics convince your reader rather than your opinion.

 Don’t overuse the dash and avoid exclamation marks and parenthesis.

 While book length fiction is a series of surprises, use surprise or a shift in direction or emotion in short stories, essays, poetry and articles. It’s especially effective midway or near the end.  Yet surprise must especially be wielded with a fine brush.  A switcheroo should not seem forced, in fact, while it momentarily jolts the reader, it doesn’t send him reeling in confusion.  And as the piece ends, the change in direction will seem intricately linked to the whole.

 Don’t force feed information to your readers. Describe or show people in action. Don’t explain why they do what they do or how they are feeling.

 Big truths are found in the smallest moments.  Search them out and use them as kind of shorthand.

 Getting the voice right is no easy matter, but in general, voice works best when you opt for subtlety.  A formal voice, as is sometimes found in literary fiction or reports, distances the reader.  Whenever practical, choose a simple voice, one that sounds like you, your character, or narrator speaking at the kitchen table.  This voice has naturalness, uses contractions and common speech. It fills the story with the breath of life.

 While all writing requires music, simplify the tune. For example, repetition is a terrific technique used to underline and emphasize. But when used too often, the reader wearies of it.

 “Be suspicious of an inclination to get tricky and jazzy with style; be especially suspicious when exotic grammar is used.” William Noble

 Life is often lived between the lines. Find ways to insert subtext—the unspoken, innuendo, the nuanced moments that are not directly represented.

 Attributions should be invisible, such as he said, replied or asked.  Avoid describing how someone is talking as in hissing, crooning, or gasping.

 Reveal nonverbal communication clues from time to time.

When: June 24-26

Where: The Hallmark Inn & Resort in Cannon Beach

What: This year’s theme is Truth, Risk & Lies

Who: Our keynote speaker is award-winning author Cheryl Stayed

Why: It’s a great way for writers at all stages of their careers to hone their craft, network with fellow writers, and meet published authors and  industry professionals with years of experience in their subject matter.

Expect: An emphasis on quality, not quantity; an intimate and welcoming conference so you’ll feel as if you belong; up-to-the-minute information on the publishing industry including how to land a book deal through a backdoor approach and what editors look for in submissions and queries; how to research publishers and agents; and then once you land a book deal, how to publicize your work.  

Clincher: True value. The cost of registration ($245) includes workshops, three keynote addresses, two meals and Friday night reception, Out Loud—a chance to read your work to an audience, a bonfire on the beach, all in a beautiful setting on the Oregon coast overlooking Haystack Rock. Single day rates are also available. And did we mention it’s fun?

Instructors: Bill Johnson, writing guru. Jessica Morrell, author and editor, Randall Platt, prolific, award-winning author, Cheryl Stayed, author extraordinaire,  Deborah Reed, hardworking author of two upcoming novels, Adam O’Connor Rodriguez, Senior Editor at Hawthorne Books, & Emily Whitman, author and wise goddess.  

 Summer in Words was founded by Jessica Morrell, developmental editor and author of five books for writers including Between the Lines and Thanks, But This Isn’t for Us, with 20 years experience helping writers succeed.

For more information contact Jessica at  jessicapage(at)spiritone (dot)com

Schedule and instructor interviews and bios are at http://summerinwords.wordpress.com

“Our imagination flies; we are its shadow on the earth.”

~ Vladimir Nabokov

Programming Note:

I’m going to be the guest on Barbara DeMarco Barrett Writers on Writing show this Wednesday at 9 AM (May 25) Pacfic Time. Writers on Writing is a weekly radio program produced and hosted by author Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, with co-host Marrie Stone. Each Wednesday at 9am Pacific, writers, poets and literary agents join her and/or Marrie. The show is broadcast from the studios of KUCI-FM; on your radio in Orange County, CA, at 88.9 and simulcast worldwide at www.kuci.org.

I’ll be yakking for an hour, so please listen in or you can download the podcast here

   My The Writing Life newsletter is being emailed this week. If you are not on my mailing list, please contact me and let me know what part of the world you’re writing from. Here’s an excerpt:

Emotional Resonance

One of many mysteries about the human species is how the arrangement of letters –mere black squiggles on a page, then form into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, paragraphs into stories — can spark emotional reactions in readers. It doesn’t seem logical on the face of things. When we read fiction we realize the whole shebang is a confection, spun from the writer’s imagination. So why waste our sympathy, our concern, not to mention our leisure hours? When we read memoirs we know the writer has survived and when we read nonfiction accounts, these too have happened in the past.

            Yet we find ourselves caught up in the story world, but mostly in the lives on the page, worrying and caring, often nervous or even haunted by a story. You might even forget that the fictional characters don’t really exist, because the writer has constructed intricate and finely wrought storylines about fascinating people caught in troubling circumstances. Although a novel or short story is about fictional events and made-up people — people whom we nonetheless come to pity, to root for, to grow weary of, to expect more from, to want better for, to celebrate, to mourn.

For those of you planning to attend Summer in Words,

don’t forget that the deadline to receive the super-fabulous discounted price is May 24th. So call the also super-fabulous Hallmark Inn at 1-888-448-449